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<blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 8655815" data-attributes="member: 2629"><p>I'm playing Odyssey, and own Courts of the Shadow Fey (which I bought with store credit in 2019 to use up the credit and so that I could mine it for ideas for the Feywild).</p><p></p><p>Odyssey has solid bones, but I have a few criticisms. I am having fun, but I can see a lot of groups struggling - a lot - and there are some elements that make it hard to focus on the story.</p><p></p><p>1.) There are 'character specific' quests that are laid on the adventure. They feel tacked on, and the DM has to work to make them feel like part of the story as opposed to feeling like the game text you skip over in a MMORPG. In the end, they do not change anything the PC needs to do in the game, really, and you get handed some magic items along the path of the adventure as a result for them. It was a nice idea, but the execution was weak. If I were to run this adventure, I'd modify these to have them take the PCs on actual quests outside the storyline that the PCs would need to decide whether to do as a group or not.</p><p></p><p>2.) The Subclasses introduced are a bit unbalanced, and tend to have ambiguity in some of their rules (which is a problem throughout the adventure, according to my DM). My suggestion: tell players you'll reserve the right to tweak them as necessary.</p><p></p><p>3.) There are some balance issues. It is very reasonable for the first attack in the game to be at +8 for 5d6+5 (22.5 average), which is enough for many PCs to flat out die on the first attack of the module. There are several places in the module where a DM running monsters intelligently could get a TPK if the PCs are not cautious - and the PCs do not always have time to be cautious. For example, our party of 9th level adventurers just took on a (tough) CR 17 monster - and 7 CR 6 (or higher?) backups. I'd suggest you look ahead and consider the balance issues and make adjustments. I'd tweak a lot of things in that adventure. </p><p></p><p>4.) There are a lot of things PCs can 'figure out early' and the module is not prepared for it. At all. According to our DM, the module tells us that if players figure it out early, the DM should have everyon just make coy smiles at us when we try to talk to them about it. This is one of the railroading issues of the module. Try to think up better ways to handle PCs figuring out these truths early, and consider better disguising some of these 'surprises' (example: Have some NPCs go by nicknames).</p><p></p><p>Courts is intended to run from 7th to 10th level. I considered running it, essentially as is, for a group, but instead decided to mine it for ideas that I relocated to other situations. However, my biggest concern with running it is that the Feywild and Fey should be tricky and unexpected. Using a prewritten material that players might look at themselves ruins the feel of Fey and the Feywild, in my eyes. As such, I would never use prepublished materials for it (or the Shadowfell/Ravenloft, either).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jgsugden, post: 8655815, member: 2629"] I'm playing Odyssey, and own Courts of the Shadow Fey (which I bought with store credit in 2019 to use up the credit and so that I could mine it for ideas for the Feywild). Odyssey has solid bones, but I have a few criticisms. I am having fun, but I can see a lot of groups struggling - a lot - and there are some elements that make it hard to focus on the story. 1.) There are 'character specific' quests that are laid on the adventure. They feel tacked on, and the DM has to work to make them feel like part of the story as opposed to feeling like the game text you skip over in a MMORPG. In the end, they do not change anything the PC needs to do in the game, really, and you get handed some magic items along the path of the adventure as a result for them. It was a nice idea, but the execution was weak. If I were to run this adventure, I'd modify these to have them take the PCs on actual quests outside the storyline that the PCs would need to decide whether to do as a group or not. 2.) The Subclasses introduced are a bit unbalanced, and tend to have ambiguity in some of their rules (which is a problem throughout the adventure, according to my DM). My suggestion: tell players you'll reserve the right to tweak them as necessary. 3.) There are some balance issues. It is very reasonable for the first attack in the game to be at +8 for 5d6+5 (22.5 average), which is enough for many PCs to flat out die on the first attack of the module. There are several places in the module where a DM running monsters intelligently could get a TPK if the PCs are not cautious - and the PCs do not always have time to be cautious. For example, our party of 9th level adventurers just took on a (tough) CR 17 monster - and 7 CR 6 (or higher?) backups. I'd suggest you look ahead and consider the balance issues and make adjustments. I'd tweak a lot of things in that adventure. 4.) There are a lot of things PCs can 'figure out early' and the module is not prepared for it. At all. According to our DM, the module tells us that if players figure it out early, the DM should have everyon just make coy smiles at us when we try to talk to them about it. This is one of the railroading issues of the module. Try to think up better ways to handle PCs figuring out these truths early, and consider better disguising some of these 'surprises' (example: Have some NPCs go by nicknames). Courts is intended to run from 7th to 10th level. I considered running it, essentially as is, for a group, but instead decided to mine it for ideas that I relocated to other situations. However, my biggest concern with running it is that the Feywild and Fey should be tricky and unexpected. Using a prewritten material that players might look at themselves ruins the feel of Fey and the Feywild, in my eyes. As such, I would never use prepublished materials for it (or the Shadowfell/Ravenloft, either). [/QUOTE]
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